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STREET MURALS (CAST YOUR BALLOT!)
DOES ANYONE RECALL that wonderful Alec Guinness flick, The Horse’s Mouth? IMBd describes this 1958 satire/screwball comedy about Gulley Jimson, “an ill-behaved, lovably scruffy painter… determined to let nothing come between himself and the realization of his exalted vision.”
The Plot. Gulley’s artistic rascality includes painting The Raising of Lazarus on a blank wall of Sir William Beeder’s residence, who is not amused. Later, seeking shelter in an abandoned church, Gulley recognizes a wall of the church as suitable for his largest work, The Last Judgement.
This huge work is completed on the day of the church’s scheduled demolition. Gulley insists on driving the bulldozer in the art’s destruction, then escapes to his houseboat. The movie concludes, with stirring music of Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé Suite (another bit of wonderful satire), as Gulley eyes up ship hulls as he floats down the Thames.
Recollective Preface. All this is recollective preface to Stephanie Friedman’s “This Street Artist’s 25-Meter Masterpiece is Nominated for the World’s Best Mural,” Nice News, January 14, 2025.
Reverie, by Megan Russell, mural on an office building in Sheffield, England. This and following images from Street Art Atlas via Nice News.
Friedman writes, “ ‘A lick of paint never hurt anyone’ appears to be Megan Russell’s motto, but as evidenced by her impressive portfolio, the international street artist’s paintings go far beyond just a lick…. The artwork, titled ‘Reverie,’ was initially voted the Best of June 2024 in a contest by Street Art Cities, an online database celebrating urban art around the globe. That honor cemented its nomination in the annual competition alongside 50 other murals from Argentina, Morocco, France, Russia, and beyond. ‘It’s just been crazy. When June’s votes came in, it blew my mind,’ Russell told the BBC.”
Megan Russell aka Peachzz at work, high above a Sheffield, England, street.
A Specialized Genre. Friedman describes, “The artist spent up to 12 hours a day painting for 10 days straight to complete the masterpiece—a process she referred to as ‘weirdly quite quick.’ In fact, while one might assume that epic murals like this one are worked on over long periods of time, Russell said that it’s actually ideal to finish them quickly due to outdoor challenges like weather. In this case, she used a doodle grid to figure out where each element of the painting needed to go.”
Image from Street Art Atlas via BBC.
A Vote for Mural Art. Friedman adds that Russell’s portfolio “includes works in Colombia and Mexico and partnerships with organizations like UPS, the British Council, and Somerset House. At the moment, Russell is working on the launch of a Sheffield street art festival she co-founded, the Lick of Paint Fest. If you’d like to vote for ‘Reverie,’ head to the Street Art Cities website to cast your ballot by Jan. 31.”
Cast Your Ballot by January 31. The website celebrates “the most popular street art across the world, as voted by the largest street art community in the world.” The images displayed are impressive indeed. By the way, Megan Russell goes by the nickname “Peachzz,” honoring her late grandmother treating her to canned peaches and ice cream as a child and serving as artistic inspiration. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025
Simanaitis Says 
Another Alec Guinness movie I’ll have to chase down .
I like street art, not the crude scrawls so common but the actual artists renderings I see here and there .
Last night as I drove the Harbor Freeway through downtown Los Angeles I mused on the old murals that used to grace this vintage Concrete byway, I am not sure exactly why they were all removed but I miss them still .
My Sweet’s house is in Westmont, part of South Central L.A. and of late I’ve been seeing an older woman sitting patiently painting traffic control boxes along the Imperial Highway, all the images she paints are nice, flowers, children, good stuff .
-Nate
In the ’70s and ’80s in DC, developers were practicing “facade developments” along Pennsylvania Ave. and some of the historic boulevards, where they’d keep the facing and totally gut all behind like a Potemkin/Hollywood village, then building high rent structures behind.To hide/protect the process, they’d erect multistory plywood walls, eyesores which folks sought to hide with murals and artwork. On West Pennsylvania Ave, there appeared a very tasteful, fetching bathing beauty … eye catching in her charm. She was named and appreciated … until her secret was made public. Her suit had been applied with water soluble colors … she was nude under the suit … bikini had been applied to slowly wash off in the weather … and the rainy season was starting!!Sadly, she was overpainted quickly, as so many trial Rennaissance masterpieces had been, when artists changed their minds.
The street art described by Nate and Bstorck are signs of gentle, thoughtful community, humanizing the urban landscape, in contrast to most graffiti.
Street Art Cities also obviously focuses on the thoughtful humanizing aspects. And then there was also Keith Haring, rest his soul, an artist who transformed graffiti into pop art. See http://wp.me/p2ETap-8KF here at the website.
Exactly, and why I wrote “most graffiti.”
Feeling numb today, so your reminder of unifying, hopeful art most welcomed, having sent the below to a couple papers:
“God bless Michelle Obama for not attending the inauguration of a buffoon undermining democracy, alienating our UN and NATO partners.”
Thank you, too, for The Horse’s Mouth, one of those movies of droll charm as England still wrested a remaining gloom from the war claiming the world’s remaining innocence. May we celebrate such joie de vivre and spirit as we keep democracy alive these next trying four years. We’ll watch it tonight.